SSV3 Chapter 13 (Patreon)

The next morning, I was making breakfast with a smile on my face. Therapy sessions and the resulting love puddle that my harem became made it impossible not to smile.

“Stop grinning so much.” Obsidian teased me. “You haven’t even tasted my lovely flesh yet.”

“I would if you hadn’t been playing so hard to get.” I joked.

“Really? Is that what you call being bound up and laying on the floor?” The raven-haired beauty leaned on the counter with an eyebrow cocked.

“Hey. I just support your kink. I wouldn’t say you’ve wined and dined me yet. Definitely haven’t tried to kiss me.” I let breakfast swirl around in the air as I cooked. Leaning to the side, I offered a kiss, feeling confident.

Sure enough, she crossed her arms, annoyed that her bluff was called.

“You still have secrets, something you are hiding. That’s fine. I actually trust you a little more because you have them. When you’re ready, let us know. Our bed is open once you choose to join.” I gave an open offer. She deserved that much after the times she’s helped us, even at the risk to her villainous reputation.

Obsidian was a very independent person. I was already surprised at how quickly she’d been willing to join her life to ours, although she kept to her separate space.

“Obby, just kiss him. Stop being silly.” Stella yawned as she came down the stairs, stretching her arms over her head. Once again, she was wearing one of my shirts. “You know you want to.”

“Stella, don’t push her.” I scolded.

A little sleepy frown formed on her face. “Too tired. Your succubus needs to be fed.” She fumbled up next to me and sat down with her mouth open.

“Stella.” I argued, but she just grabbed my hand and stuffed it into her mouth, sucking on two of my fingers and drawing ki.

“Better.” Stella mumbled around my fingers as she continued draining ki. She was drawing more than I would have expected.

I frowned and inspected her power. She had fed off of me plenty the night before.

But even as I looked, her power was actually only half full.

“Stella, didn’t you feed enough last night? Why do you need more this morning?” I asked her.

“Dunno.” She said, continuing to drain my ki. “Ssh. Hungry.”

After a minute of draining the ki, she stopped and smacked her lips.

She clearly was not as concerned as I was about her power needing so much ki. I’d have to keep an eye on her.

“Morning.” Melody was in a chipper mood as she strolled into the kitchen. I was glad to see she wasn’t too stressed about the role she’d play today. “I have my new comms.” She turned her head, and I couldn’t even see it.

“Is it under your skin?” I asked as I continued to study her head.

“Nope. Here’s yours. Put it at the base of your hairline.” She held out a small black box. “The good doctor worked late into the night to make these.”

I picked up the box as Stella made her way to the table, and I habitually made and put a large stack of pancakes down in front of her, along with a full bottle of syrup.

Opening the little box Melody had given me, I found a small device that was smaller than the tip of my little finger. It had a slight shimmer to the metal, and as soon as I touched it, the thing changed color, blending in perfectly.

“It has some sensors on it, according to the Doctor, that pick up the color of whatever it’s stuck to and adjust for shadow.” Melody came closer and lifted her hair to show her own device.

If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I would have never seen it. Even then, I thought it was a sort of mole rather than a communicator.

“Interesting.” I stuck mine to the edge of my hairline. “Checking?”

“Loud and clear.” Melody stuck up a thumb. “Tap it once to turn on or off the recording, tap it twice to stop receiving. The doctor says they are quantum paired, so they only talk to each other, and nothing can intercept the signal.”

“Any idea what that means?” I teased.

“Not a clue.” Melody stuck out her tongue. “But they work, and that’s what matters. I’m glad the doctor is on our side.”

I had to agree with her.

Tapping the device once, I felt a little vibration to confirm it had worked. I didn’t want to be transmitting to her as we ate. I also didn’t want to turn it off and forget about it.

“So, you are going to debut as a villain this morning. Nervous?” I asked her as I finished setting the table for our normal breakfast.

Melody filled a plate with bacon with a grin. Now that I could just speed up her metabolism when she wanted, she’d stopped stressing so much over food. “The general says we are going at nine. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. But no one is supposed to be at the shop. I just need to blow it up in a fit of rage. I think I can handle it.”

“And I’ll be there, invisibly, to help.” I reaffirmed, wanting her to know that I would have her back.

“Thanks.” She dug into her bacon with a sigh that sounded like her soul leaving her body for heaven.

Stella came up from her pancakes with a little syrup stuck to her face. “Don’t worry. Being a villain is easy. You just stop caring about other things and do what you want. Then everything goes smash when you get angry.” She jabbed playfully into the air.

Melody squeezed her eyes together as she put on a fake smile. “Yeah, I could see how that works.”

“Don’t push yourself.” Angelina took her spot at the table, rounding out the breakfast crew as Mona joined us, too.

Emma was still sleeping, per usual.

Do you need any of us there to support you and Melody? Mona asked.

No, I’ll be fine by myself.

I had my own worries, but there was no reason to stress Melody out further by bringing them up beforehand. Stella was right; this was going to be more about Melody letting go than her actually planning anything.

“Then after we all head off to the bureau, I’ll make sure to be seen around, and then I’ll slip away to work with you, Melody. Don’t worry; you’ve got this.” I gave her my best winning smile.

It seemed to cheer her up and distract her.

“You know. At least as a villain, I don’t have to do conditioning every day.” Melody pondered aloud.

Stella dropped her fork. “Not fair!”

Melody snickered. She’d known exactly what she was doing with her statement. “But you are getting so much stronger, Stella. You might not have noticed, but your butt has become quite bubbly too.” She changed tacts to appeal to what Stella liked.

“Really?” Stella twisted about in her chair before turning to me. “Is it more bubbly?”

“Certainly. Those squats are working.” I was quick on my response.

But it was maybe too quick; Stella narrowed her eyes at me. “Fine. I guess I am getting some benefits from working out. Melody is going to have a saggy ass if she doesn’t keep going.”

Melody’s jaw dropped. “Hey. Take that back.”

“Sorry, too busy over here sitting on my nice, firm ass.” Stella wiggled in her seat a bit.

“I can make a workout room in the lair if you’d like.” Obsidian jumped in, cutting off Melody’s retort. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get my hands on the gravity weights that you’ve talked about before, but I should be able to get conventional weights. That should work for you?”

My purple elf paused before nodding. “Yeah. I just need some normal weights. I’m not a freak like Stella.”

Stella looked like she was about to get into it again, so I lifted the syrup up and put a fresh pour over her pancakes.

It sufficiently distracted her as Stella dug right into it.

***

After we finished up breakfast, we shifted into our normal routine. Angelina went to North Point Prison for her therapy, even though the place was still wrecked from the prison break. They were using some temporary structures, but construction was running smoothly.

And the number of inmates had dropped significantly, but it would fill back up over time. Unfortunately, prisons always seemed to have no shortage of those who get caught doing stupid things.

Obsidian went back into her lair to continue her work.

Melody hung back with the sleeping Emma while the rest of us went off to the bureau.

“We’ll see you this afternoon.” Mona said, dropping me off and shooing Stella into the locker room.

I needed to keep up appearances and wanted to be seen quickly, so I headed over to The Spine to talk to my analysts and prepare for Velody’s first appearance.

As I badged into the spine, I saw Beatrix.

The reminder of yesterday’s conversation had me frowning when she turned around. Her eyes went wide, and she stammered. “M-morning, M-miles.”

That gave me even more pause. “Is everything alright?”

“Just wanted to assure you that I haven’t looked into your things. Not at all. Your threat yesterday was effective.” Beatrix had trouble meeting my eyes as she spoke.

I felt at least a little better knowing that she was a total shit liar. But I didn’t love that it meant she had dug into my past.

“So. What did you find?” I asked, drawing on my power and closing off the sound waves around us to prevent this conversation from leaking.

“Nothing. I said I didn’t look.” She was blushing furiously and having trouble meeting my eyes.

I paused with a deadpan, trying to figure out what to do.

“Beatrix, you are a crappy liar. What did you find?” I asked again, only this time I pushed further. “You were looking into the giantesses. You likely saw that I left, and they never did. Yeah?”

Beatrix was scared, her eyes wide open with shock as they darted from side to side, looking at how many people were in the room with us. “Pretty much. Did you… uh… kill them with your new telepathy power?”

I hadn’t gotten the power until after that incident, but I decided to go with it. “Yes. Then I had someone clean up the bodies.”

She swallowed. “You could have reported that to the bureau. Given the situation, it would be self defense.”

“And a mound of paperwork while I got benched for reevaluation. If you’ll remember, we were in the middle of an important case. I didn’t have time to go through the proper channels.” I made up something on the spot. A small lie to protect my secret.

It clearly made Beatrix uncomfortable as she fidgeted. “Fine. I won’t report this and make you do the paperwork, but you owe me.”

I frowned. Beatrix didn’t seem like one to let something go so easily, but for the moment, I would leave it. I needed to get to Melody soon. “Fine. I owe you one.”

“Great. Then I’m going to call it in. My… uh… my mother is trying to bring me to this family thing this weekend, and she’s going to push me really hard about not having a boyfriend still. Would you be willing to pretend to be my boyfriend for just the day?” Beatrix asked.

I relaxed a little, surprised that despite being afraid of me, she’d want to use me that way. But it made more sense for why she seemed extra on edge.

“Fine. Send me the details, and I’ll make time.” I promised her. I wondered if she was trying to seduce me into telling her all my secrets.

“Great. I’ll send them over to you later today. S-sorry again for not trusting you. I could understand why you did what you did.” Beatrix hurriedly turned back to her computer and went to work.

Walking down to my analysts, I replayed our conversation in my head. I definitely didn’t trust her, but it was better to stay on good terms.

I tripped Ben’s sensor as I approached, and he spun around as his monitor flickered off. “What can we do for ya boss?” If he was a dog, his tail would be wagging.

“Mostly just checking in. But I have a small request.” I sat down on Rachel’s desk.

“Things are rolling along here. We sent a list of ideal targets for Velody last night. But we aren’t sure what you’ll pick. Maybe it is better that way.” Mary stated.

I nodded. “The Military picked out her target for today. So we’ll use this list for the ongoing project. Do me a favor and update me if there’s a major change?”

“We can do that.” Ben nodded.

I looked between them, deciding that Ben was the best for my special request. “Given the nature of project Velody, I was going to ask that Melody and myself be restricted in access here at the bureau. The last thing I need is some meeting with her to discuss the project to send up flags here.”

Ben’s eyes went wide, and he nodded. “But that’s sort of not what we are supposed to do.”

“I tried again. Maybe you can set up a warning that triggers if anybody is investigating either of us?”

He still looked hesitant, so I added, “Put it under the Special Access project.”

Finally, he nodded. “I can do that. I’ll even make it invisible. They won’t know they tripped it so we can intervene if necessary.”

I had to keep myself from a dangerous smile.

If Beatrix looked any deeper, I’d know.

“Good. That would keep both of us safer. How are you doing on the list of common villain mingling locations where we have surveillance?”

I was growing less concerned about keeping her off the radar for her first kill. Pratt had a damn budget for that.

But it didn’t change the fact that I wanted to know the sites. It was a hell of a lot easier to skirt monitoring when you knew where big brother was watching.

“The list.” Rachel did something on her computer and my tablet pinged. “A lot of them are under infrequent monitoring. The devices are there, but they only record at certain intervals to prevent detection. Even then, they transmit their recordings when there is no one present. The last thing we need is for them to get caught in a bug sweep or by some super’s power.”

“Tricky.” I hadn’t even thought about how they keep from being found.

When I’d used my power previously, I’d looked for small electrical signals or the radio waves transmitting the data. If they were powered off like she was suggesting, they’d be invisible to me.

I’d definitely have to keep blanketing areas around me, even when I thought we weren’t bugged.

“Yeah. The Bureau comes up with all sorts of tricks to try to get ahead of the villains. It’s actually pretty cool.” Kate said. “Anything else, Boss?”

“No, that covers most of it.” I rubbed at my chin, trying to think of anything else I should put in place. But for the moment, just watching and waiting seemed like enough.

“There’s another thing I’d like you to look into. I’m on another quiet project with Doctor Wells. We are looking for unique powers.” I gave them just enough on her new experiment to help me.

“What kind of powers?” Mary asked, making me think.

I almost said what I really wanted, but then another idea hit me. There was already someone with the power that I needed.

“Just unique ones. We are compiling a list of powers that would compliment Amelia and Ivanna.” I lied a bit. They could both use a little more power and would likely be up for the procedure, but they weren’t the true person I had in mind.

No, for the power I needed to keep my secret under wraps, I’d have to go back to my old boss, Candice. She had the power to subtly manipulate people.

That sort of power wasn’t something I wanted permanently, so the best option I could think of was giving it to one of Obsidian’s clones. Then they could help me when I needed it. And with the current Beatrix problem, I already had a first use.

The analysts nodded, getting back into their work as I headed back out of The Spine, trying to move normally but anxious to get to Melody.